Introducing bike tolls and the Rahm-PASS

Bicycle enthusiasts saving money that city could use

August 22, 2012|John Kass

A bicyclist travels West Kinzie Street on Tuesday. The days of low-cost city riding could disappear when Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets a look at a proposal being offered by a noted urban political theorist and newspaper columnist. (José M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune)

The thousands of Chicago bicyclists who've been pedaling to work each morning better finally realize something.

Your free ride may be over.

Get ready for bike tolls and the Rahm-PASS.

Under a potentially controversial plan that a sometimes-visionary Chicago urban political theorist is offering for consideration to Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday, cyclists would finally feel the City Hall pinch, just as car owners have been pinched for years.

Here's what could be coming for the bike-to-work crowd:

•City bike tolls and city bike vehicle stickers, which could bring in millions upon millions of much-needed revenue to City Hall, allowing the cash-strapped government to add new police to its woefully undermanned force.

•City stop-sign cameras to automatically ticket bicyclists who cruise past the signs without stopping, infuriating those of us in cars.

•Hefty city bike parking fees, like the city parking meter fees, easily enforced as bikers "park" in city bike racks. No sticker = big tickets. And if you don't pay, there's always the bike boot.

•And my personal favorite: the Rahm-PASS. Fixed to the bike's handlebars, the Rahm-PASS transponder would be like the I-PASS for cars on state tollways. Cyclists would cruise underneath strategically situated girders over street corners with heavy bike traffic, and they would bypass (or Rahm-PASS) the bike tollbooths run by grumpy political workers.

An artist's rendering might depict the special Rahm-PASS arched girders this way:

Emanuel's arms in a blue suit, his giant all-weather plastic hands folded high above each intersection, palms facing down, and the Rahmfather's head above all, his pitiless, glowing omniscient orbs connecting to those Rahm-PASS transponders on bikes as he pulls in all that cash for City Hall. And on his forehead in flashing lights, this message: "Open city bicycling brought to you by Rahm Emanuel."

These ideas are contained in the amazing plan crafted by that famed theorist — a guy who persuaded untold gazillions of Americans to insert an open beer can up a chicken's butt before grilling.

OK, OK, OK, there is no actual "plan." I'm not handing him "The Plan." The plan is here, in this column, and I hereby give it to the mayor, since he's a loyal reader and has been waiting for me to drop hints all summer about when I'll finally bring him his coveted Rahmfather portrait.

Predictably, the group of elitist politically coddled bicyclists — the One Percenters of the Commuter Class — call my idea insane.

"Why should I have to pay to ride my bike?" said bicyclist Joe Sampson, 28. "Are you going to fine us to walk on the street or breathe the air? Money grab."

Joe, why should you pay? Well, dog owners pay for licenses. Are you better than dog owners?

"Insane!" cried Joe. "It's crazy."

Call me what you will, Mr. Joe Bike Guy, but the facts are that the city is spending $4.7 million on 34 miles of bike lanes this year — and could spend tens of millions on some 450 miles of new bikeways planned by 2020.

So when is the last time you saw a bicyclist pulled over by a cop and given a traffic ticket? Never? Never, you say? I thought so, Mr. Joe the Bike Guy.

The Rahm-PASS idea just might protect the Rahmfather from the kind of political disaster that befell former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty.

The once-popular Fenty lost his re-election bid in 2010 after critics portrayed him as a pro-bike elitist hipster.

In a Washington Post article headlined "How D.C. Mayor Fenty lost the black vote — and his job" was this chilling passage:

"Frustration mounted as the Fenty administration added dog parks and miles of bike lanes while unemployment in Ward 8, home to the city's poorest neighborhoods, reached 30 percent."

Listening, Rahmfather? How can anyone argue that the city should spend cash to create bike lanes for pedaling One Percenters while not having the cash to hire enough cops to protect neighborhood folks dying in gang wars?

The Rahmfather isn't the mayor of Portlandia. He's the mayor of Chicago. But his sucking up to bicyclists seems less about serving Chicago and more about appealing to hipsters on the East and West coasts as he stokes his national political ambitions.

Symbolism costs money, though, and addressing an understaffed police force is more important than bike lanes, don't you think?

Please don't misunderstand. I love our noble bike-ists. Anyone with a brain would applaud them for their carbon-footprintless pedaling.

But if you have a brain, you must also realize that when politicians start handing out government perks — like special bike lanes costing millions — it's only a matter of time until people become addicted to them.

And then government's reach into the public wallet is mere child's play.

Ashley Doublet, 24, a notary who bikes to and from work, said she'd refuse to pay my recommended bike toll.

"If I was going to drive my bike on the interstate, that's fair," she said.